Bihar Opposition Declares Tejashwi Yadav As Chief Ministerial Face, Challenges NDA To Reveal Its Candidate

Tejashwi Yadav As Chief Ministerial Face: It's official. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav is the Chief Ministerial face of the Opposition's Mahagathbandhan as Bihar gears up for a high-voltage Assembly election.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Tejashwi Yadav is all set to be the joint Opposition's Chief Ministerial candidate for the Bihar elections. After weeks of back-room negotiations & power plays, Congress veteran Ashok Gehlot finally put his seal of approval on Tejashwi at a joint press conference with other Mahagathbandhan allies in Patna today.

Gehlot said the Mahagathbandhan had chosen Tejashwi Yadav as its Chief Ministerial face because he is "young" and "committed". He then threw a dare to the BJP. "I want to ask Amit Shah... our leader is Tejashwi Yadav. Now they should confirm who is their (NDA) Chief Minister face." Gehlot also announced that Mukesh Sahani, the chief of Vikassheel Insaan Party, is the alliance's Deputy Chief Minister candidate, but added that more deputies could be announced later. The veteran leader said Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, wanted Tejashwi Yadav to be the opposition's Chief Ministerial face.

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Addressing the press meet, Tejashwi thanked all alliance partners and said the Mahagathbandhan will work together to rebuild Bihar. Taking a swipe at NDA, he said, "Nitish Kumar is facing injustice. There has been no announcement that Nitish Kumar is the NDA's Chief Ministerial face. We want to ask Amit Shah, you declared Nitish Kumar as the Chief Ministerial face before every election, why not this time? This is Nitish Kumar's last election. Amit Shah has made it clear."

The Press conference was an attempt by the Mahagathbandhan to show a united front after weeks of infighting over seat distribution. For a while now, Congress had been keeping mum about backing Tejashwi, holding off on a formal endorsement in the hopes of getting a better deal on seat allocation.

The troubles started brewing when the RJD & Congress were unable to agree on the seat-sharing. Both parties had dug their heels in for certain seats and the Congress was pushing hard to get its hands on a fair share of seats to contest. This standoff led to an unusual situation where both parties ended up announcing candidates for the same seats, giving them a chance to split the opposition vote & hand JDU and BJP a walkover. In a bid to prevent a total free-for-all all, Ashok Gehlot was flown in to Patna to broker a peace deal between the two warring parties.

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The 2020 Assembly polls were a close contest between RJD & Congress, where RJD managed to secure 75 seats out of 144 they contested & Congress won just 19 out of 70. Fast forward to this election, RJD has put out its list of candidates for 143 seats, while Congress has announced its list of 59 hopefuls. VIP led by Mukesh Sahani is likely to contest on 15 seats, while CPI, CPI(M) & CPIML may put up candidates in 30 seats. What's more, in some of these seats, you'll find that two Mahagathbandhan partners are pitted against each other. Some of these nasty little squabbles may settle down once the alliance partners have gotten their act together. Today also marks the last day for nomination withdrawal for the second phase of polling on November 11 - meaning there may be some last-minute withdrawals after the partners reach an agreement on a few seats.

The NDA, he said, had not placed any agenda before the people and had only copied his poll promises. He also flagged the law and order situation in Bihar and claimed that every day, at least 200 bullets are fired in the state. Countering the NDA's "jungleraj" barb, he said, "I want to tell the people of Bihar. Tejashwi will never compromise on corruption and law and order. Even if Tejashwi's shadow commits a crime, punishment will follow."

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